When a sound is transmitted into the human body, the resonated sound depends on the underlying medical condition. There are many medical conditions and diseases that can be diagnosed′based on the audiometric analysis of the resonated sound. One such disease is tuberculosis which is explained here.
Tuberculosis is a deadly, chronic, infectious disease which is generally caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It is also the leading cause of death in patients infected with HIV. It is a bigger problem in many developing countries, with about 9.5 million new cases and 3 million deaths each year. India has the highest burden of this disease with about 2 million new cases a year.
Presently tuberculosis is diagnosed based on examination of sputum sample under the microscope, or by culturing the sample. A chest x ray may also help in the diagnosis. Recently Gene Xpert technique is used to diagnose this deadly disease. However, the microscope exam is not 100% reliable; sputum culturing is time consuming and takes weeks to get the result. Although Gene Xpert is capable of producing the results in minutes, it is very expensive and not commonly available. Also the above mentioned diagnostic tools do not come handy as a hand held device.
Also in the developing countries there is a need for the cost effective, improved, quicker, handy diagnostic and screening tool that will help in the diagnosis and epidemic screening of tuberculosis. The proposed invention fulfils this need and further provides related advantages.
Although percussion technique for some diseases is manually performed by some clinicians as a part of the clinical examination, it has its own limitations mainly due to limited human abilities and skills. This invention overcomes these limitations and also includes all other possible medical conditions and diseases that can be diagnosed based on the accurate audiometric analysis of resonated sounds.
Although in some diagnostic devices ultrasound is used, this invention does not use ultrasound.